High-throughput screening instruments (or analyzers) are critical tools in the pharmaceutical research industry and in the process of discovering and developing new drugs. High-throughput analyzers are used to assess the efficacy of candidate drug compounds. Dramatic increases in the number of these compounds and in the number of targets against which they may be directed has created a bottleneck in the development of new drugs and a need for instruments that can operate with a high degree of analytical flexibility and speed. Analytical flexibility and speed are necessary because high-throughput applications may involve repeating the same operations hundreds of thousands of times, greatly magnifying even the smallest shortcomings. Recently, robots and other devices have been used to speed up and automate many high-throughput screening procedures.
High-throughput analyzers typically are contained in a housing that has a sample input port on one side. For some high-throughput applications, it is most convenient and efficient to use the analyzer in a manual mode, in which an operator stands in front of or near the side of the instrument where the input port is located. In this case, it also is convenient to have a control unit located on the same side as the input port, so that the operator can interact with the control unit while overseeing the sample feeding process.
For other high-throughput applications, it is preferable to employ ancillary robotic mechanisms to feed samples in and out of the instrument automatically, through the input port. Yet, if the control unit is on the same side as the input port, it may be awkward or even impossible for the an operator to access the control unit without interfering with or encumbering these ancillary robotic mechanisms.